


What Comes Next?

by celticheart72



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky's dusting is mentioned, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Temporary Character Death, Tony and Nat's deaths are mentioned, dusting of ofc is described
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celticheart72/pseuds/celticheart72
Summary: Steve's girlfriend is dusted in the snap and he has no choice but to move on. Until Scott Lang gives them new hope of bringing everybody back. When he goes back to 1970 and sees Peggy again what could have been starts to cloud his mind. He's torn between a woman he loved 80 years ago who he is sure he can go back to and the one he lost just five short years before that he's still not sure he can get back. Their time heist works and Bruce is able to snap everyone back to the present. What choice is Steve going to make now that he has the chance to be with either of the women he's lost?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	What Comes Next?

**Author's Note:**

> See the endnotes for inspiration and spoilers.

Delilah hears it. Even though she isn’t anywhere near Thanos when he snaps his fingers, she still hears it. Or maybe it isn’t so much that she hears it as she feels it.

Something deep inside of her feels wrong, and she knows there isn’t much time left. Knowing that she runs to where she last saw Steve and skids to a stop, her heart thundering in her chest. 

Bucky is disintegrating in front of him. Turning to dust right in front of his eyes.

Steve turns her way and, in two quick strides, engulfs her in his embrace. She buries her face into his neck, concentrating on how he feels, the scent of dirt and sweat on his skin, his voice when he says her name. 

Suddenly her body feels odd like she isn’t solid anymore, and she knows it’s happening. In a matter of seconds, her heart slows, and everything goes numb, then she doesn’t feel anything at all. Lifting her head, she looks into Steve’s anguished blue eyes. 

He knows too.

“Don’t let me go, Steve.” She softly sobs as she starts to slip away, and his arms tighten around her as if that alone can hold her together. “Please don’t let me go.” 

His lips press against hers, and both of them close their eyes. “Never. I’ll never let you go. I love you.”

“I love…”

Steve opens his eyes and finds his arms wrapped around the air where she just was as the dust of her remains settles to the ground. He drops down to his knees, squeezing his eyes shut, and presses his fists into the dirt.

How can this be all that’s left?

* * *

Five years later…

Steve ducks into an office, trying to keep out of sight of the woman and MPs looking for him and Tony. He sees them pass by, and just as he’s about to walk back into the hall, he turns his head and catches sight of a picture on the desk.

It’s him.

Before the serum.

He holds it in his hand, his heart thundering in his chest as he looks back at the door.

Somehow he walked into Peggy’s office.

A familiar voice catches his attention, and he looks up to find Peggy in the outer office.

Everything else flies out of his mind as he stares at the woman he loved so many years ago. He thinks back on what they lost. The dance they never had. A life they could have lived if he hadn’t sacrificed himself to save the world.

All those years and all those memories they never got to share.

She never forgot him.

As he takes a deep breath, swallowing hard, and looking back at the picture of himself before his world was forever altered, he wonders.

What if?

He swallows again and sets the picture back down. Tony must have the Tesseract by now, and they have a job to do.

Steve makes his way back outside, where he sees Tony holding a briefcase and bouquet while he talks to another man. He gives Tony a thumbs up and waits.

His mind lingers on Peggy. And his heart aches.

Everything after that moves by him almost in a fog.

Nat is gone. The kind of gone the stones can’t fix.

All he can think is that they have to win and bring everyone else back. Otherwise, Nat’s sacrifice loses its meaning.

Steve stands by while Tony, Bruce, and Rocket work on a gauntlet to hold the stones. He listens while Thor argues that it should be him to wear the gauntlet.

The entire time he thinks about how much closer they are to their goal.

How much closer he is to maybe leaving this all behind.

His mind lingers on what comes after this is all done, as Bruce puts on the gauntlet, activating the infinity stones and their combined power. Bruce struggles to lift his arm and snap his fingers, falling to the floor after he does while the gauntlet drops from his hand.

Steve is conscious of the movement around him and the focus on Bruce. He hears Clint then Scott talking in the background. There is a split second for him to wonder where Delilah is, just before everything around them explodes.

While he lies in the rubble of what was once the Avengers compound, half knocked out from the blast his mind drifts and settles on memories of Peggy.

The way she treated him before the serum, like he meant something even though he had a myriad of things stacked against him.

When she was still angry at him for kissing that other woman, and she shot his shield.

Their first and only kiss.

The sound of her voice when they planned their date, all the while knowing he wasn’t going to make it back.

Suddenly Tony is there, and Steve brings himself out of his memories.

Even though they know it’s a trap, they fight Thanos once more until Steve is struggling to get back up, and his shield is half gone.

He makes it to his feet, tightens the strap of his mangled shield, and faces the army in front of him.

Three men against thousands.

Until he hears Sam’s voice.

“On your left…”

He turns to find everyone that was lost coming through portals from where they dusted. And with them so many more. Sam flies overhead, and his eyes drop to where Delilah walks next to Bucky through one of the portals from Wakanda.

There’s just enough time for him to register that she’s real and standing next to his best friend, ready to fight Thanos a second time.

He’s tempted to rush to her, but he knows she can handle herself and that Bucky and Sam will continue to watch out for her.

Guilt starts to worm its way into his heart.

He loses track of what’s going on in the fighting around him until suddenly Thanos’ army begins to turn to dust in front of him.

Steve whirls around, fear seizing his heart as his eyes search out Delilah. He finds her arms pushed up over her head, her staff blocking Proxima Midnight’s who begins to disintegrate.

Delilah drops her arms and looks around the battlefield. Her own heart starting to race as she realizes what’s happening and fear sets in that it’s going to happen to her again. She turns to find Steve, his ridiculous Captain America mask in place, standing maybe fifty feet away.

He’s watching her. Maybe waiting for the same thing she is, but it doesn’t happen.

This time when she runs into his embrace, it’s with relief, but Steve feels different somehow. He seems to hesitate and hold himself back. In the heat of the moment, she thinks it’s the aftermath of the battle.

That’s when she realizes he’s not even focused on her. His gaze is over her shoulder at something behind her. She turns and sees Pepper talking to Tony who’s entire right side is ravaged.

It finally hits her that he sacrificed himself to destroy Thanos and make sure they were all safe.

As the light of his arc reactor goes out, and her eyes sweep around the battlefield, she drops to one knee with Steve beside her. Tears stream down her face, and she feels Steve’s hand take hers and squeeze it as her shoulders shake.

* * *

A few days later…

Steve sits across from Delilah, staring at his hands folded together over the table.

She’s finally had enough of the silence and leans forward, reaching out one hand to lay over his. He doesn’t make any move to return the gesture or make any other show of affection.

In fact, since the end of the battle, his only gesture was holding hold her hand while they honored Tony. He’s slept on the couch for the two days they’ve been in his apartment while waiting for Tony’s funeral.

“Steve, talk to me. What’s going on?” Her tone sounds like begging to her ears, and it kills her that she’s resorting to that.

Steve clears his throat and lifts his eyes, sitting up and pulling his hands back in the process. “We had to go back to get the stones. To bring everyone back.”

“I know.”

“I saw Peggy.”

Delilah’s heart drops at the way Steve’s voice sounds when he says Peggy’s name. It’s with a reverence and affection that Delilah’s never heard before, not even when he went to visit her before she died.

It’s a tone Delilah used to hear if she caught a snippet of conversation where Steve was talking to someone about her. And it hurts to know that he’s using that same tone in deference to Peggy now.

“It’s been five years, Lila. I-“ He swallows and lets out a breath, his eyes bouncing between his hands again and her eyes. “I had to move on. We tried to get the stones back from Thanos after the snap, were going to try to bring everyone back right away, but he destroyed them.”

The anguish in his voice is heartbreaking, but his words are devastating her own heart.

“It was moments for me, Steve,” she whispers and folds her arms over her chest.

“I know. That’s why all of this is so hard. I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t know what to feel right now.”

“So that’s why you’ve been on the couch the last two days? Barely talked to me?” She pulls her shoulders up and runs her hands up her arms, drawing in on herself. “Closed yourself off from me?”

“Yeah.” The guilt is thick in that one word as it hovers between them.

“I thought you loved me, Steve.”

He winces at the hurt written all over her face, and as much as he doesn’t want to hurt her any more, he knows he has to be honest with her. “I do. I did. But I loved Peggy too. I went into the ice in 1944 and woke up in 2014, where the woman I loved was 93 and nearing her death bed. That was moments for me too. We never even had a chance.”

Delilah had never actually thought about that. They met mere months after he woke up and six months later were dating. Both of them sit in silence until she stands up and goes into the bedroom to collect the few things she has. When she comes back with her backpack over her shoulder, Steve is standing up from the table.

“Lila, I don’t want you to go.”

She huffs a laugh, “But you don’t want me to stay either.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t need to Steve. I know you well enough to know that you aren’t going to be able to work this out as long as I’m here.”

“Where are you going?”

Tears sting her eyes, and she doesn’t want to let them fall where he can see. It would only make his guilt worse, and he wouldn’t be able to make the best decision for himself. Not only that, but stubborn pride won’t let her show him how much she’s hurting.

Taking a deep breath, she lets it out noisily, “I’m not sure, but you’ll see me at Tony’s funeral.”

With that, she walks out the door and holds her breath until she’s in the stairwell where she lets the tears go. The sobs she holds back until she’s in a cab on her way to the secondary compound Tony kept for the Avengers. Wanda, Sam, and Bucky are all there along with the others who will be leaving Earth after Tony’s funeral.

When she gets there, Bucky is sitting on a bench outside. He’s leaning casually against the marble wall behind him with his arms crossed over his chest, a bottle of tequila sitting next to him.

She stops and narrows her eyes at him. “Did he call you?”

Bucky’s slow laugh and warm smile reminds her that despite everything he’s been through, the man in front of her never lost his kind heart. “Stevie hasn’t kept a secret from me since we were kids.”

Delilah snorts at him and sits down with her backpack between her feet. “How did you know I’d come here?”

He shrugs and offers her the bottle. “Just had a hunch.”

“I think he wants to go back to Peggy.” She takes the liquor and drinks down a long swallow of the fiery liquid

“He’ll figure things out. It’s just going to take him some time, Dilly.” Bucky accepts the bottle when she passes it back.

She humphs and blinks away the tears pooling again. “Everything is gone, Bucky. All of the remnants of our life together before the snap. Gone.” Swinging her head back to look at him, she fights to keep the tears off her cheeks. “How could he do that?”

Bucky chews on his bottom lip. He knows what’s going through Steve’s mind. They talked about it right before Steve took Delilah back to his apartment the first night after Tony’s death. “It was five years for him, what choice did he have? He had to move on.”

“It was five minutes for us.”

“He didn’t know that. As far as he knew, after they discovered Thanos had destroyed the stones, he’d never get you back.”

“It’s not fair,” she whispers, and he can hear her crying despite her efforts to keep it hidden.

He lifts his arm, offering her comfort if she chooses to take it. She leans into him and turns her face into his shoulder. “I know it isn’t. None of this is fair.”

She cries for a few minutes, sniffling, and rubs her cheek on his shirt.

“If you leave a trail of snot on my shirt, I swear you’ll regret it.”

That makes her giggle, and she makes a sound like she’s blowing her nose into his shoulder.

He takes a finger, wets it, and sticks it in her ear.

“Gods Buck! What are you? Five? That’s gross.” She shudders as she lifts the fabric of her shirt and dramatically wipes out her ear.

At least it stops her tears.

“I never thought about the fact that he’s been through this too.”

Bucky leans his head back so he can see her face. He’s pretty sure he knows what she’s referring to.

“He never had closure with Peggy. He went into the ice desperately in love with her. When he woke up, even though it was really 70 years later, it felt like minutes to him. He was still in love with her when we met.”

His heart sinks when he thinks he knows where she’s going with this.

“What if he was just substituting me for her? What if he never really loved me?”

“Stop that. Steve loves you.”

“I’m not so sure anymore, Buck.”

“Don’t give up on him yet.” He takes a drink from the tequila bottle then passes it off to her. All the while thinking his best friend better get his shit straight before Bucky has to kick his ass.

She leans forward and is completely silent while she looks up at the moon and stars in the darkened sky.

They continue to pass the bottle back and forth until it’s empty, and he’s sure she’s ready to pass out. No more words fall between them, and he worries that maybe she’s already given up. As much as he hates to say it, if she has, that’s Steve’s burden to bear for hurting her heart. He helps her to the room next to his, so he can keep an eye on her just in case.

He helps her get her boots off then deposits her on the bed, where she promptly passes out.

As he makes his way back to his room, he gets his phone out and sends Steve a message.

_ she’s safe. her heart’s breaking. hope you know what you’re doing punk. _

Within seconds he gets a response.

_ Figuring it out jerk. And thanks. _

* * *

Tony’s funeral is a grand affair as one would expect. He’s the hero that saved the world.

Later the same day, they have one for Nat. She’s the hero that made it possible for them to save the world.

The gathering they have at the Stark’s cabin is quieter. More subdued and solemn. Tony must have known something might happen to him because he made a recording. Just in case.

Steve stands behind Happy and Rhodey as they watch Pepper and Morgan set the shell of Tony’s first arc reactor in the water. He is all too aware of Delilah less than ten feet behind him, standing with Wanda, Bucky, and Sam.

His heart aches because he knows she should be next to him.

He waits until everything is over, and she goes into the cabin before he turns and gets Bucky’s attention. They walk away from everyone else, and Steve stands at the edge of the water, hands in his pockets, as he looks out at the horizon.

“How is she?” His voice almost cracks when he finally speaks.

“How do you think she is?”

Bucky’s tone makes Steve turn. The irritation he sees in the other man's face gives Steve pause.

“You should be talking to her, not me.”

“I know, Buck. But I still just don’t know how I feel.”

“What brought this on? You moved on, the two of you were together for four years. As far as I could tell, you were happier with her than I ever saw you. Even when you were with Peggy.”

Steve shakes his head. “That’s just it. Getting over Lila was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” He moves a little closer to the water and looks down at his reflection in it. “I woke up every night in a cold sweat, feeling her turning to dust in my hands. Kept hearing her voice. Smelling her perfume. I thought I was going to break. I had to move on in order to survive losing her. That alone took two years.”

When he turns back, he finds the anger has left Bucky’s face, who looks like he knows something Steve hasn’t caught onto yet.

“Then I saw Peggy back in the past, and all I could think about was what if I hadn’t gone into the ice? Started to think maybe it might be time to stop doing this. I could go back and have that life with Peggy that we never had a chance to have. Then when it worked, when we got all of you back, and I saw Lila, I was numb. I didn’t feel anything. I know I should have. But I didn’t.”

Bucky shakes his head; the smile on his face amused. “You really held onto all the stupid while I was gone, didn’t you?”

Steve scrunches up his face, “What do you mean?”

“Sounds to me like you’re scared. You spent all that time trying to get over Dilly that when you went back and saw Peggy, you started to feel guilty that it wasn’t as hard to get over her.”

“That’s a load of crap.”

“Maybe not. Peggy might have been your first love, Stevie, but don’t you think that maybe Dilly is the love of your life?”

“I-“ Steve pauses as his voice completely fails him. His heart hammers as he considers the implications of Bucky’s words, and he stares into the water.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns to find Bucky smiling and walking away at that point. His friend knows he needs time to think.

* * *

A few days later…

Delilah watches as Steve prepares to take the Infinity Stones to put them back where they came from. To protect the timeline.

And stay in the past with Peggy.

She wraps her arms around herself and lets her eyes follow him up onto the pad, where he sets Mjolnir down next to his feet.

Steve turns in her general direction, and his eyes meet hers just before his mask closes over his face, and Bruce counts down to his time jump.

* * *

After returning the other stones and putting the Tesseract back where Tony found it, Steve finds himself making his way to Peggy’s office once again. She’s not there, and this time he looks at the other pictures on the wall.

There is one of Peggy with her husband on their wedding day.

Another of Peggy and her husband with a toddler and Peggy is holding a baby.

His eyes go back to the picture of himself on her desk — the one before the serum.

She may never have forgotten him, but she did move on.

He reaches inside his pocket and pulls out a picture of himself with Lila from before the snap. It’s a silly selfie he took of the two of them in the park one day. He’s holding his phone out away from them to take the picture as she laughs and leans into him.

It’s the look on his face that gets to him.

Steve is smiling and looking at Lila like she’s his entire world.

The realization that Bucky is right hits him like a ton of bricks, and he feels an ache deep in his chest.

Peggy was his first love. And that’s okay. But she’s not the love of his life, and he can’t stay here.

It wouldn’t be fair to Peggy, her husband, or their children to erase them from the timeline like that.

And it certainly wouldn’t be fair to Lila, who loves him with all of her heart and is right in front of him in his own time. She shared a life with him for four years before a cruel twist of fate that wasn’t her fault took her away. It wasn’t his fault either, but he certainly could have handled things better since he got her back.

He knows what he has to do.

* * *

When Steve disappears from Delilah’s sight, she sighs and turns away, intending to head back to the compound. She makes it the few steps to where Bucky stands and hesitates when she feels his hand on her upper arm. Holding her back from going any further.

Delilah lifts her chin until she can see his face. He simply shifts his eyes from hers to somewhere behind her.

Her back stiffens as she feels a familiar presence behind her.

“Lila, sweetheart, look at me.”

Turning back, she finds Steve standing about five feet away, looking more sure of himself than she’s seen him since long before the snap. Bucky’s hand drops, and he walks away, back to where Sam stands with Bruce watching them.

She brings her hands up and locks them onto her upper arms, in a sense protecting herself from the pain. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”

He smiles as he walks forward and holds out a hand. “I came back for you, sweetheart.”

Her hand lifts without a thought, and before she knows it, Steve is lacing their fingers together. “Why?”

“I couldn’t exactly leave my best girl behind, now could I?”

“I thought that was Peggy.”

“No, she’s not. I’m sorry I made you think she was. And I’m sorry I didn’t handle things well when you came back.”

She feels his other hand close over their laced fingers, and he rubs his palm into her knuckles. Delilah’s words rush out of her mouth with barely a pause or breath as her heartbreak rises in her throat again. “You’re going to have to explain what happened because I’m completely confused. One minute I’m fighting some crazy alien, then I turn to dust in your arms. Wake up in a white room with Bucky and Sam, and all these people I don’t know then a few minutes later someone saying it’s time to go back. I get back here, and we’re fighting Thanos again, and when it’s all over, you’re cold. Like we didn’t spend four years together living a shared life before all of this happened. I know it was five years for you, but it’s like I was completely erased from your life.”

“In a way, you were. It’s not an excuse, but losing you almost killed me, Lila. There were days I didn’t want to go on because it felt like life just wasn’t worth living in a world without you in it.” Steve sucks in a shaky breath as he takes a step closer, and his hand moves up her forearm. “I saw Peggy in the past, and all these what-ifs started running through my head. I knew I had a way to get back to her. I still wasn’t sure if we could get you back.”

He swallows hard, and Delilah reaches up to brush a tear off his cheek. His eyes shut, and he nuzzles his cheek into her palm.

“After I saw you on the battlefield, next to Bucky, I was numb. I couldn’t shake that feeling, and I couldn’t figure out why.” Steve’s eyes open again to find Delilah watching him, tears running a path down her face. “Bucky said some things that made me think, and then when I put the Tessaract back, I realized what it was. I was afraid and feeling guilty as hell.”

Delilah leans forward at the waist and drops her hand from his cheek to the middle of his chest. “I- I don’t understand.”

Both of Steve’s hands lift to her cheeks at that point, and his thumbs brush the tears from under her eyes. “When we found a way to get the stones again, I latched onto what was easy. Letting Peggy go was easy. We didn’t have much of a history, and I focused on the what-ifs. Focusing on her, thinking about going back to the past, back to her…that was easier then letting all those feelings for you come back in if our plan didn’t work. I was afraid of having to struggle through getting over you again.”

Her lip quivers and she turns her face into one of his palms, letting her lips kiss the center as she does. One foot edges forward, closing the diminishing distance between them.

“I love you, Lila. I never, NEVER, should have let you go in the first place. And when you came back, I never should have let you think it was Peggy that I wanted.  _ YOU _ are the love of my life, Lila.”

Finally, she moves into his chest and grips the front of his shirt. Bunching the fabric up in her fists, she pulls it up to her nose and takes a deep breath. She clenches her teeth and fights down the threatening sob, but it escapes anyway.

He stands completely still while she does this until he sees her shoulders start to shake and hears the gutwrenching sob she tries very hard to hide. Steve wraps his arms around her and pulls her in close, laying his cheek over the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Lila. So sorry.”

The sobs start to ebb, and Delilah is left with the annoying snuffle that comes at the end of a long hard cry. She finally lets go of Steve’s shirt and slides her arms around him, laying her cheek on his chest.

They stay like that so long Steve starts to worry about what she’s going to say.

“I love you, Steve Rogers…”

He lets out a relieved breath.

“…I won’t say I’m not still hurting, because it’s going to take a while for me to get over this. But it’s not your fault. Not entirely anyway.” She lifts her head and looks up to find he has tears running down his cheeks as well. “Thanos did this. I can’t expect that you would have put your life on hold to wait for me when all evidence pointed to the fact that I was gone from your life forever. But you definitely could have handled this better.”

“I know.”

Her eyes scan his face and her nose wrinkles. “What happened to your beard?”

Steve chuckles, “It’ll grow back.”

“Can we go home now?”

With a smile, he dips his head to press a kiss to her lips and hovers there, “Yeah, sweetheart, we can.”

“Alright! Now that you two love birds have made up, you want to explain that?”

They turn to find Sam pointing to a round black case sitting against the jump pad.

Delilah looks up at Steve, the burning question clear in her eyes, and he simply nods.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of my version of a fix-it fic, at least for what Endgame did with Steve. It just felt wrong that he went back to be with Peggy effectively erasing her husband and children from the timeline. They both moved on and I just couldn't see him doing that to her. So I thought what if Steve had a girlfriend who was dusted and he had to go through the emotions of seeing Peggy again and then the guilt following. I needed a reason behind what he did and this was what I came up with.
> 
> And I know there are arguments that Steve was Peggy's 'secret' husband, which I don't have any issues with. It's just not my headcanon.
> 
> If you like my work kudos are appreciated. If you love it comments are wonderful. If you have constructive criticism or questions let's talk. If you leave blatantly rude or negative comments, know that no hate is allowed here and will be deleted. And if you read my work and are too shy to interact right now, know that's okay too.


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